This and other highly sophisticated technologies and data management tools
that may revolutionize medical imaging will be displayed during the NASA
advanced technology workshop in Greenbelt, MD, July 17 and 18. The
workshop, “New Partnerships in Medical Diagnostic Imaging,” will be held at
the Greenbelt Marriott Hotel.
“This workshop will showcase NASA technologies that can significantly
enhance medical imaging and allow participants to explore potential
commercial partnerships with the private sector,” said Carolina Blake,
chief of the Commercial Technology Office at NASA Ames Research Center in
California’s Silicon Valley.
“Last summer, our company partnered with NASA Ames to develop a breast
cancer detection tool that would provide a less costly and less painful
alternative to biopsy,” reflected BioLuminate, Inc. president and CEO
Richard Hular, who will speak at the workshop and share his success story.
“In less than a year, this partnership took us from licensing the smart
surgical probe developed by Dr. Robert Mah of Ames to testing our first
original prototype,” said Hular.
During the workshop, NASA centers will demonstrate a variety of innovations
that have valuable medical applications. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, CA and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, will
introduce Solid State Image Detectors and Computing Hardware/Software
Applications. NASA Ames will provide information about 3-D reconstruction
software and digital image compression.
“ROSS 3D reconstruction software can be an extremely useful diagnostic,
visualization and animation tool for imaging methods and reconstruction
techniques,” said Richard Boyle, director of Ames’ Center for
Bioinformatics. Originally developed by Sterling Software and Dr. Muriel
Ross, this software enables scientists and doctors to create a
three-dimensional reconstruction of an object obtained from imaged sections
or layers by physical, optical, sound or other means with the interactive
aid of a computer.
DCTune is a computer technology that can enhance editing, storage and
transmission of x-ray, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other medical
images by advancing digital image compression. As a part of a larger
program of human factors research at Ames, DCTune is a result of Dr. Andrew
Watson’s research on visual perception and its application to coding,
understanding and display of visual information. Based on a model of human
vision, DCTune provides perceptual optimization of image compression.
“NASA is strongly committed to transferring innovative technologies from
our research and development projects to the private sector. This event is
another example of our on-going effort to commercialize NASA technology,”
said Blake.
Information about the Commercial Technology Office at NASA Ames is
available at its web site at:
http://ctoserver.arc.nasa.gov/
